Lawson satisfied after late Red Bull call-up at Zandvoort

Liam Lawson says he wasn’t given enough time in last year's Red Bull to truly compare any improvements the team has made since, following his appearance in Sunday's Dutch Formula 1 Grand Prix. 

Red Bull promoted Lawson in place of Sergio Perez for the 2025 season, only to then replace him with Yuki Tsunoda after just two race weekends. Lawson has since rebuilt his reputation at Racing Bulls and was picked to fill in for the injured Isack Hadjar in Zandvoort, qualifying alongside teammate Max Verstappen on Saturday and finishing a lonely seventh behind the McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari drivers.

“I'm sure there's things that I can do better in the race and I'll try and reflect on it, but in terms of positions I don't think we had the speed to match the guys in front, and I feel like we knew that after [Saturday] as well,” Lawson said. “Qualifying was both of us behind them, but it's been a good weekend. It was good to extract everything out of qualifying. It's been tough to try and get my head around this car in a short space of time, but I've enjoyed it.

“The car is completely different aerodynamically, and as well there's always things that personally as drivers we [do to] try and make our cars comfortable for us. There's some things that when you switch a car for a weekend, you can't just automatically change those things.

“So there's stuff in this car that aren't the same as mine in terms of just driver comfort that I've had to get my head around, without being too specific, but that's stuff that has probably been the most challenging.

“Honestly with how last year was with those two weekends – the way those weekends played out, being on two tracks I'd never done, I honestly still don't think I even have an opinion on what that car was like to drive. I feel like I got more comfortable in this in a weekend, so it’s very hard to compare.”

Lawson also had the closest view of Verstappen’s first-lap crash, as he was directly behind his teammate at the time on Sunday, and said the tricky conditions were not helped by a formation lap that was speed-limited behind the Safety Car.

“Just impossible," he said. "I mean the whole first half of the lap was dry, and then the last two corners were completely soaked. So, really easy obviously to do that when you have this much power and on a slick tire, but I really lifted out of it sort of, because honestly… I had no confidence to know how much grip was going to have there, and I think Max was probably trying to get close and make an overtake and just lost it.

“I don't know why we had the Safety Car. To do a standing start and also do a lap behind the Safety Car makes no sense. So I'm not sure what the reasoning of that was, but I feel like we could all see that coming, we were all probably saying the same thing before when we got the news, but we don't have control of that.”

RACER understands Hadjar’s return at Monza is still to be confirmed, and Lawson would again drive for Red Bull should the Frenchman be ruled out for another race weekend while recovering from a wrist injury.